This nocturnal visitor was no other than Pedro, who, in the course of casual conversation, had cunningly discovered from Ignez the locality of her sleeping-place, and who, after supping with Don Salvador, had taken an additional bottle of wine at a taberna with Zuares, and returned to the house on the Alameda. Then, selecting the window of Ignez, he had cast his lasso over the balcony and swung himself up, hand over hand, in a manner which his past nautical experiences rendered easy enough.
He approached slowly and stealthily, dreading an outcry when she discovered him. He had but two ideas. One was to persuade her to elope with him; the other was the hope that she might so far compromise herself that marriage alone could save her honour. Cautious in all his proceedings, he had gathered the lasso in his hand, for to leave it dangling into the street might have attracted attention, and caused premature discovery. Behind one of the poplars in the Alameda, Zuares sat crouching on his hams, and watching like a lynx.
Pedro was within a pace of Ignez when she started, and her dark eyes dilated as she saw his form appear behind her own, reflected in the mirror; but, ere a cry could escape her parting lips, he threw his arms around her, and stifled it with a kiss.
"Pedro—Don Pedro!" she exclaimed, in a voice of agitation and terror.
"Yes, Ignez, 'tis I! Nina mi alma—'tis I."
This forecastle phrase, which means literally, "my little honey," by no means reassured her.
"How—what does this mean?" she asked, angrily.
"It means that—that my love, Ignez, can neither tolerate absence nor delay."
"Delay!" she faltered, while gathering up her hair, by which she displayed a very taper waist, and two polished elbows.
"I dread alike the wiles and enmity of your cousin Perez, and that devil of a Padre Eizagiuerro, with many others who dislike me, and I have come hither to-night that we may be separated no more."